From ’Nam via Mom

The summer after I graduated from college I spent a month at home, cooking with my mother. She had decided that I needed to learn all the “basic” Vietnamese dishes and I had decided I needed to record all the family recipes that my mother had been keeping in her head. I ended up with a treasure trove of recipes that I still use today.

This recipe for stir-fried water spinach with beef is from my mother. She grew water spinach in her garden when I was growing up. I remember eating a lot of it then, but I haven’t had any since leaving home. Asking for this recipe not only gave me a recipe to use for this column but it meant having one more addition to my collection of family recipes, a collection I value more each year. (Find water spinach (also water morning glory or kangkong) in Asian supermarkets.)